PALAKKAD: The ramshackle tiled house in Elamandam, Thenkurissy, was home to eight children — six brothers and two sisters. The late Aneesh, 27, was the fourth child. The house is only half finished with the verandah neither plastered or roofed. On Sunday, a posse of police personnel stood guard near the house. And the family was disconsolate. Aneesh used to accompany his father Arumughan for painting work. Sometimes, he took up individual assignments too. His mother Radha works as a manual labourer.
“One day, I was at work when I got a call from the Circle Inspector of the Kuzhalmannam police station saying that my son, Aneesh, had married and that the couple was there at the station. The police said they can’t do anything as both the bride and the bridegroom had come on their free will and had attained the legal marriageable age. I went there quickly and brought them home,” Radha told TNIE.
As soon as they reached home, she told Haritha, Aneesh’s wife: “Please go back home. Financially, your family is far above ours. Moreover, I share a cordial relationship with your family. I used to go regularly for harvesting paddy in your grandfather’s farm which is just half-a-kilometre away. Therefore, please go back.” But Haritha, Radha said, would have none of it. The daughter-in-law replied: “I won’t go back without Appu ettan (Aneesh). If you send me away, I will end my life.”
Radha said Haritha’s father Prabhukumar called immediately. “He said they would arrange another rented house as the current house had very little space. He asked Aneesh and Haritha to return saying they didn’t want their daughter to stay in this manner so close to their house. But Haritha declined as her parents had opposed the marriage. As it wasn’t safe for them to stay here, Aneesh and Haritha moved to a rented house at Alathur,” Radha said.
Subsequently, Prabhukumar and Suresh —Haritha’s uncle — began enquiring about their new dwelling and offered another rented house in Kunissery, the mother said.
“In the meantime, the threats increased and Aneesh and Haritha returned to our house,” she said. Arun, the brother who was with Aneesh when they were attacked, said Prabhukumar then threatened his daughter over phone that the marriage will not last more than three months.
His father, Arumughan, said caste was not an issue in their area before. “I used to hear news about Kevin and others but this is the first time that an incident of this type is being reported from Thenkurissy. It is a pre-planned murder,” he said.
They were not going for painting work in recent times as the construction sector is yet to recover from the Covid setback, he added. Both Arumughan and Radha said they do not expect anything short of the gallows for the two accused, Prabhukumar and Suresh. “They too should experience the agony that my son suffered,” Radha said. Haritha, reclusive, did not wish to speak. She said: “I said everything yesterday. Anyway, I will not get my Appu ettan back.”
‘Haritha’s grandfather used to threaten her’
Palakkad: According to Aneesh’s family, Haritha’s grandfather Kumaresan Pillai used to often call her up and try to threaten her into coming back home. In a purported voice clip, Pillai could be heard advising Haritha to abandon Aneesh. The District Crime Branch officers said they would look into these angles in the course of the investigation.